Former Aucklander Gareth Anscombe was excellent in orchestrating the demolition job after he replaced injured Welsh icon Dan Biggar early in the game.
Eddie Jones, head coach of Australia, and Warren Gatland, head coach of Wales before the Wales vs Australia match in Lyon this week. Photo / Getty Images
Anscombe is hardly a Kiwi alone in top European rugby.
Ireland would not be the world’s best team without their Australasian recruits, led by midfield powerhouse Bundee Aki.
WINNER: Dave Rennie…
…after Australia’s 6-40 disaster against Wales and early World Cup exit.
The Wallabies weren’t in brilliant shape under New Zealand coach Rennie, but he was still busy establishing a World Cup platform.
The decision to sack him, enabling Eddie Jones’ return, goes down as one of the great blunders in World Cup history.
Yes, there are such things as magic bullets in sport.
But Jones? He’s all talk, along with left-field decisions designed - it can look - to make him appear amazing if they happen to come off.
The game is too sophisticated for that to work any more.
His only defence after the humiliating defeat to Wales can be that Aussie rugby has been falling apart for decades.
But Jones invited disaster through decisions such as leaving a wonderful test warhorse like Michael Hooper at home.
And while he is apparently denying a report he talked to Japan on the eve of the World Cup about a job, his crazy demeanour makes those things believable.
WINNER: The Aussie rugby TV commentators and pundits
They are world class; their bluntness, analysis and world view are streets ahead of what we get from our lot.
The star of the show is probably Tim Horan, one of the best inside backs to ever play the game.
But the whole team is superb and they handled the defeat to Wales with energy and insight, including a heated debate involving Sonny Bill Williams.
(It’s weird though, listening to a double World Cup-winning All Black and former Kiwi league star refer to Australia as “we”.)
The Aussie TV pundits variously described the Wallaby loss as “the darkest day”, “absolute humiliation”, “absolute nightmare” and so on, while Jones was criticised for “the mind games he has been playing with these kids”.
SBW slammed Jones over reports he recently met with Japan about a job, saying it would be hard to follow a coach like that into battle. Australia certainly played like a team with little belief in the cause.
Australian rugby is in such a bad state their TV pundits add up to the one bright spot, keeping the flame alive. It’s easy to forget Australia once led the world in rugby intelligence.
WINNER: Stephen Hoiles’ solution
It is in everyone’s interest for Australia to get out of these rugby doldrums, and I believe former Wallaby Stephen Hoiles had a key solution.
Hoiles says Australia must reduce its professional teams to four, or even go back to three, in order to concentrate and raise the quality.
He is bang on. The clamour to “spread the game” through pointless ideas such as basing a team in Melbourne have helped wreck the Aussie mojo.
LOSER: All of us…
...with the World Cup injuries to rugby superstars Malcolm Marx and Antoine Dupont.
WINNER: This goal
This was supposed to be a Rugby World Cup column, but…
One of Manchester City’s goals against Nottingham Forest involved 46 passes. That is two shy of the EPL record set by Tottenham Hotspur in 2014.
